This invention relates to the treatment of human disease. More particularly, it relates to the recovery and identification of a hitherto unknown infectious microorganism, the application of this pathogen to laboratory animals, and to novel indications for the use of certain known chemotherapeutic agents in the treatment of human diseases associated with the novel pathogen.
The search for new therapeutic agents and novel indications for existing drugs in the treatment of human diseases requires an animal model system related to each particular disease under investigation and which is responsive to a reproducible source of the infectious agent. Non-treated infected animals of the model must show symptoms or succumb to the disease in a regular, predictable manner. In addition, although some laboratory animals inoculated with a human disease-causing agent may show a syndrome with a long latent period, it must be possible to definitely associate the syndrome with the corresponding human chronic disease.
The isolation of a causative agent from human chronic inflammatory disease conditions capable of inducing those conditions in an animal model would therefore be an important breakthrough in the etiology of such human diseases.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a process for recovering an infectious microorganism from inflammatory disease tissue or fluid as the causative agent capable of inducing those disease conditions.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an animal model system responsive in a definite and predictable manner to a human disease-causing agent.
Another object is to provide novel indications for existing drugs and means for designing new therapeutic agents by means of an animal model.
These and other objects of the present invention as well as a fuller understanding of the advantages thereof can be had by reference to the following detailed description and claims.